AL AIN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

College of Engineering & Information Technology

COURSE SYLLABUS

1. COURSE INFORMATION
Course Title
Course Code
Credit Hours
Pre-requisite
Co-requisite
Academic Year

Operating Systems
0101306

3
0109202

Spring 2013-2014

2. INSTRUCTORS INFORMATION
(a) Name

Dr. zina Houhamdi

(b) Contact Details

Office Extension: 885

Phone: 050-09337950
Email: zina.houhamdi@aau.ac.ae
Office Hours: Mon: 12:30 - 14:00, Wed: 12:30- 14:00
Sun: 12:30 14:00, Tue: 12:30 14:00

3. BRIEF COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course covers history of operating system concepts. Process: inter-process
communication, process scheduling, and deadlocks. Input/output: principles of I/O hardware
and software, disks and clocks. Memory management: swapping, paging, virtual memory and
page replacement algorithms. File systems. Some examples of operating systems will be
introduced such as Unix, Linux, etc

4. COURSE OBJECTIVES
To provide coverage of basic computer system organization.
To describe the services an operating system provides to users, processes, and
other systems.
To introduce the notion of a process and describe the various features of
processes, including scheduling, creation and termination, and communication.
To introduce the notion of a thread -- a fundamental unit of CPU utilization that
forms the basis of multithreaded computer systems.
To introduce CPU scheduling describe various CPU-scheduling algorithms.

To introduce the critical-section problem, present both software and hardware

solutions of the critical-section problem, and introduce the concept of atomic
transaction and describe mechanisms to ensure atomicity.
To develop a description of deadlocks and present a number of different methods
for preventing or avoiding deadlocks in a computer system.
To provide a detailed description of various ways of organizing memory, and
discuss various memory-management techniques, like paging and segmentation.
To describe the benefits of a virtual memory system and explain the concepts of
demand paging, page-replacement algorithms, and allocation of page frames.
To explain the function of file system, describe the interfaces of file systems and
describe the details of implementing local file systems and directory structures.
To describe the physical structure of secondary and tertiary storage devices and
explain the performance characteristics of mass-storage devices.
To explore the structure I/O subsystem of an operating system.
5. COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES
After finishing this course, students are expected to be able to do the following:

Know what an operating system is and be able to compare and contrast a

variety of different types of operating systems, including batch, multi
programmed, time shared, PC, parallel, distributed, and real time.

Understand the basic structure of an operating system and its components.

Know the most important CPU scheduling algorithms, the classical problems
in process synchronization and know how to characterize and cope with
processor deadlock.

Know several different schemes for managing main memory, including

swapping, paging, and segmentation.

Understand the concept of a file, and how to access, organize, and protect
files.

Know the characteristics of an I/O system, and understand how the user, the
operating system, and the hardware interact with I/O.

6. COURSE CONTENTS

Topics in this course include:

History and evolution of operating systems

Processes and threads
Cooperating and independent processes
Process synchronization (Semaphores and monitors)
Message passing, remote procedure calls, client-server computing
Deadlocks
CPU scheduling
Dynamic storage Management
Paging and segmentation
Demand paging, working sets
Disk Input/Output
File system structures and Directories
Protection and security

7. COURSE CONTENTS AND TOPICS ( Week by Week )

Week

Topic Covered

1,2

History and evolution of operating systems

3,4

Processes and threads

Cooperating and independent processes

Message passing, remote procedure calls, client-server computing

7,8

CPU scheduling (cpu schdling)

Process synchronization (Semaphores and monitors)

10

Deadlocks (bankers algorithm)

11

Dynamic storage Management (Paging and segmentation) (mem

management, paging and segmentation)

12,13

Disk Input/Output (hard disk management)

13,14

File system structures and Directories (file system/management)

important final.

15

Current tends in operating systems.

16

Final Exam

8. OUT-OF-CLASS ASSIGNMENTS ( Book Review, Project, Term Paper etc ):

Submission Date:
Week2

Assignment 1

Week 4

Assignment 2

Week 6

Assignment 3

Week 8

Assignment 4

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COURSE TEXTBOOK, RECOMMENDED READINGS AND RESOURSES :

Textbook Title:

Tanenbaum, A., Operating Systems Design and Implementation, PrenticeHall, 2006, ISBN 0-13-0-13-142938-8
Reference:

Silberschatz and Galvin, Operating System Concepts, latest Edition,

Addison-Wesley, Chow, R. Johnson, T., Distributed Operating Systems
and Algorithms, Addison-Wesley, 1997.
Deitel, H., Operating Systems, Second Edition, Addison-Wesley, 1998.
Flynn, I., McHoes, A., Understanding Operating Systems, Brooks-Cole,
1991.
Leffler, McKusick, Karels, Quarterman,. The Design and Implementation
of the 4.3BSD UNIX Operating System, Addison-Wesley, 1989.
Maekawa, et. al., Operating System Advanced Concepts, BenjaminCummings, 1987.
Milenkovic, M., Operating Systems Concepts and Design, McGraw-Hill,
1992.
Silberschatz and Galvin, Operating System Concepts, Fourth Edition,
Addison-Wesley, 1994.
Stallings, W. Operating Systems - Internals and Design Principles,
Prentice Hall, 1998.
Tanenbaum, A., Distributed Operating Systems, Prentice-Hall, 1995.

LEARNING STRATEGIES
Active learning strategies are employed in this course to encourage students'
participation in class and to foster their abilities to discuss a solution to a problem in
group. Active learning strategies include assignments where students work in teams
to solve certain problems and do projects on their own. Assignments will be provided
to students after a set of related concepts are covered. Hands-on sessions are also
necessary to practice the theoretical part of the course and to train the students to use
a programming environment.
10. STUDENT EVALUATION
Following is a distribution of 100 score across assessment tools:
Course Work Evaluation
(Tests / Quizzes / Assignments)
Midterm
Final

40
20
40

11. ATTENDANCE POLICY

Students are expected to attend their classes. Absence never exempts a student from the
work required for satisfactory completion of the courses. Excessive absences of any
course will result in:
1.
First warning for absence of 10% of the class hours
2.
Second warning for absence of 20% of the class hours
3.
A failing grade in the course for an absence of 25% of the class hours
4.
Exception to (3) may be made in the case of serious illness or death to an
immediate family member if approved by the dean of the college. In such
case, the student will receive a W grade in the course
12. PLAGIARISM
It is use of someone elses idea, words, projects, artwork, phrasing, sentence structure, or
other work without properly acknowledging the ownership (source) of the property.
Plagiarism is dishonest because it misrepresents the work of someone else as ones own.
Students who are suspected of plagiarism will answer to an investigation. Those found
guilty will face a disciplinary action as per the university rules.